Grab your favourite kite, because this October the sky above Cape Town is getting a serious glow-up. The Cape Town International Kite Festival is back for its 32nd year, and this time it’s flying for a cause close to home: mental health awareness.
Picture: Sulize Terreblanche / Supplied
Taking place at Youngsfield Military Base in Ottery on 24–25 October 2026, the festival is turning the sky into a giant, colourful conversation starter under the theme #ColourTheSky.
Why a kite festival, though?
It sounds like a stretch until you hear Professor Ingrid Daniels, CEO of Cape Mental Health, explain it. ‘Mental Health Awareness Month gives us an important opportunity to remind people that mental health is part of our everyday lives. It is not something we should only talk about when someone reaches a crisis point.’
She adds that the festival creates room for exactly those conversations. ‘When people come together, when they talk, when they connect and when they understand that they are not alone, we begin to break down the stigma that prevents so many people from reaching out for help.’
Picture: Sulize Terreblanche / Supplied
The numbers behind the kites
This isn’t just feel-good fluff. South Africa’s SASH study found that 16,5% of adults experienced a common mental disorder in a 12-month period, with 30,3% affected at some point in their lives. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates more than one billion people live with a mental health condition.
A platform in the sky for a worthy cause
Every ticket and donation goes toward Cape Mental Health’s work, which currently supports more than 71 000 service users through 22 intervention programmes across the Western Cape.
As Professor Daniels puts it: ‘We want people to look up and see more than beautiful kites. We want them to see hope.’
So this October, bring a blanket, bring your people and look up.
Article previously shared by Cape Etc.
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